[arch-dev-public] [arch-commits] CVS update of core/base/libpcap (PKGBUILD)

[Jan de Groot]

On Sun, 2007-10-07 at 07:42 -0400, Thomas Baechler wrote:
> Date: Sunday, October 7, 2007 @ 07:42:13
>   Author: thomas
>     Path: /home/cvs-core/core/base/libpcap
> 
> +# This package has a strict SONAME that changes in EVERY MINOR
> +# release. Whenever you feel like updating this package, DON'T,
> +# it will break a number of essential system tools.
> +# Again, for dummies: IF YOU UPDATE THIS PACKAGE DIRECTLY TO CORE,
> +# I WILL PERSONALLY CHOP YOUR HEAD OFF!

Morning Mr Head Chopper...

I looked at this package yesterday, it seems something is plain wrong
with the soname versioning. I took a look at the debian package, where
we retrieved the shared library patch from 2 years ago (yes, libpcap was
one of the first packages I changed when I had current access). It seems
they keep track whether a release is API/ABI stable and keep the soname
the same. FYI: They have libpcap.so.0.9.8 and libpcap.so.0.8, as the
0.9.x versions share the same ABI as the 0.8 versions. They update their
patches to keep things working.
I'm thinking about two solutions here:
- Make sure apps stop linking against the .so.0.9.x library, apps should
link to the normal soname that doesn't change on minor version bumps
- remove the patch completely and continue to use the static library as
the libpcap project does upstream

Solution 1 looks hard, but all it takes is updating the shared lib patch
and adjust it to not look at the debian changelog to generate its
sonames.